The Call of the Mild p-3 Read online

  “That’s an excellent point,” Rushton said. “And it’s been taken care of. Hector”-at this point, the pilot gave them all a brief nod to introduce himself-“has not only suitable hiking shoes, but clothes as well for all of you. Once this call is terminated, you will each be given a few moments alone to change.”

  There was a low murmur in the cabin. To his shock, Gus thought it sounded like gratitude, when it should have been the angry mutterings of the mob about to storm the castle with torches and pitchforks.

  “One more thing about the wardrobe change,” Rushton said. “Hector will take the clothes you’re wearing now back to Santa Barbara, where they will be professionally cleaned and left for you in your offices. He will also take all your belongings, including any handheld devices you might have with you.”

  Now the muttering in the cabin sounded sufficiently angry.

  “I’m not giving up my cell phone,” Mathis sputtered. “I’m using that to find my way down.”

  “It’s certainly your choice,” Rushton said. “But Hector will not give you your clothes, shoes, and backpack until you have given him everything you’ve brought with you. If it’s worth walking down in business attire to keep your GPS, I won’t try to stop you. Just make sure to avoid the sharp, pointy rocks on the trail. They can go right through a leather sole. And don’t worry about not having any food. I’m sure your colleagues will be happy to share theirs with you.”

  Mathis looked crushed. If the rest of the lawyers were surprised by any of this, they weren’t letting it show on their faces. If anything, they looked slightly relieved, as if they’d been expecting something even worse. Gus wanted to grab them, to scream into their ears. Didn’t they understand there was nothing worse?

  “But you won’t need a GPS, anyway,” Rushton said with a reassuring smile. “You’ve got a map. A highly detailed topographical map with the fastest, safest route marked out.”

  “If you’re giving us maps, why not let us have our GPS as well?” Savage said. “To a skilled hiker, one is as good as the other.”

  “I didn’t say, ‘maps,’ ” Rushton said. “I said, ‘map.’ One of you, and only one of you, has the map.”

  “Who?” Mathis demanded.

  “It better not be Gwendolyn,” Jade said. “Because she’ll take off and leave us the first chance she has.”

  “Not us,” Balowsky said. “You, definitely, but not the rest of us. Not as long as there’s a chance she might need some help.”

  “It might be Gwendolyn,” Rushton said. “Or it might be you, Jade. It could be any one of you. The thing is, that person is the only one who knows. And if he or she reveals that fact to anyone else, every one of you will be fired on your return.”

  “How would you know?” Savage said.

  “Sorry, everyone will be fired except the first person to tell me about the cheating,” Rushton said. “Does that explain how I would know?”

  Apparently, it did, because all the lawyers were glaring at one another suspiciously.

  “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” Rushton continued. “I’m not trying to kill you here. The entire point of this trip is for you to learn to work together as a team. That’s why I’ve given the map to one person, who is forbidden to admit having it. You will all need to work together to reach a consensus on your route, and it will be up to the map bearer to convince the others of the right way to go. If you function well as a team, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “And if there is a problem, we’ll all be dead and you can hire new people,” Gwendolyn said.

  “How could I ever hope to replace your feisty spirit, Gwendolyn?” Rushton said. “No, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. In fact, nothing will make me happier than to see you all march together into the lodge at the bottom of the mountain in five days, where there will be an unbelievable celebration waiting for you. But if something should go wrong, you will not be alone. Each one of your packs has an emergency beacon that will transmit your GPS location once it’s been turned on. There will be people monitoring you at all times. If one of the beacons goes on, you will all be rescued by a search party and the retreat will be over.”

  What does a loophole sound like? Gus was sure he heard five lawyers all diving for the same one. But Rushton wasn’t done.

  “And so will your careers at Rushton, Morelock,” he said. “If we have to rescue just one of you, all of you will be fired. Because, again, this is about working as a team. And as a team there is nothing you can’t do-especially getting down off this mountain in five days. Now, Hector is ready with your new wardrobes, if you’d like to take your turns stepping into the tent he has erected outside to change.”

  There was a moment of hesitation; then Savage leaped up out of his seat. “I’ll go first,” he said, and followed the pilot out of the helicopter. The others gave their handhelds a last longing look, then followed him out.

  Gus didn’t move. He was never going to move. He’d simply sit there, securely belted to the seat, until the pilot had to take off. He wasn’t a part of this law firm, anyway. He and Shawn already knew who the killer was. Their job was over.

  For the first time since he’d seen the backpacks, Gus risked a glance at Shawn. It wasn’t that he was afraid his best friend would be as unsympathetic to his panic as he had been at Descanso Gardens; it was just the opposite. At Descanso, Shawn knew there was no real danger, and he tried to demonstrate that by acting unconcerned. Now Gus was certain that if he looked over at Shawn he’d see the one thing that was guaranteed to make him feel worse: real worry.

  But Gus’ state of mind seemed to be the last thing on his partner’s mind. Shawn’s gaze was fixed on Oliver Rushton’s face. “Good news,” Shawn said. “We know who the killer is.”

  “I’m not interested in what you know,” Rushton said. “Only in what you can prove.”

  “We’ll give you a full debrief just as soon as we’re back in your office,” Shawn said. “The flight shouldn’t take too long, although I think we’ll need to stop to use the little boys’ room along the way.”

  “I’m afraid that meeting will have to wait until you have actual proof,” Rushton said. “I need you to accompany my employees on this retreat. After all, if one of them is a killer, I’m depending on you to protect the rest.”

  “The best way to protect them is to bring them down in the helicopter,” Shawn said.

  “Apparently we disagree,” Rushton said. “If only there were some way to come to an amicable resolution of our differences. Oh, wait, there is. You agreed to serve as my in-house investigative department, which means you belong to me. And if you don’t take part in this retreat, I will sue your firm out of existence.”

  Rushton hit a button on his desk, and the screen went blank.

  Gus risked another glance at his friend and this time he found exactly what he most feared: Shawn was giving him a look filled with sympathy.

  “We don’t have to do this,” Shawn said.

  “You heard what he said.”

  “So he sues us,” Shawn said. “What’s the worst thing that happens? He wins a judgment for gazillions of dollars against Psych. The firm goes out of business, and he gets nothing.”

  “But we are Psych,” Gus said.

  “We’ll start a new firm,” Shawn said. “If we can’t call it Psych, we’ll call it something else. Ic, maybe. Or Out. There are lots of things that come after ‘Psych.’ ”

  Gus felt a rush of warmth for Shawn. That his best friend was willing to sacrifice the only career he’d ever loved just to spare him some misery was overwhelming. So much so that it was even able to overwhelm his fear.

  “Not a chance.” Gus peeled his hands off the armrest, then used one of them to unbuckle and fling off his seat belt. “Let’s get out there and kick some mountain butt.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Now it starts, Gus thought. Any second now my heart rate is going to jump up, my breathing will turn into a series of harsh g
asps, my pulse will become ragged and thready-and I don’t even know what that means except they always say it on TV before the really bad stuff starts to happen. Then the panic will take over completely, and I’ll start to run blindly. The last thing I’ll feel is the empty air under my left foot as I step off that cliff…

  There was certainly plenty of reason for Gus to panic. They were stranded in the wilderness. And this wasn’t the parklike forest of his recurring dream. This was the top of a granite mountain hundreds of feet above the tree line. Wherever he looked, he saw a vast sea of wild country spread out below him, broken only by the jagged peaks of the rest of the mountain range. It would take a day of hiking just to get to the kind of green wasteland he was used to.

  And Gus’ rescue-his only hope for rescue-the glorious, luxurious helicopter that had brought them to this high-altitude hell, was nothing but a tiny speck disappearing in the distance. It was already indistinguishable from the enormous birds of prey that circled over the mountain-no doubt vultures waiting to pick the flesh off his broken carcass.

  Gus took a breath, expecting his throat to close up and choke off his airway. To his surprise, clear, clean mountain air flowed down easily into his lungs. It flooded his bloodstream as his heart pounded slowly and steadily. It took him a moment to realize exactly what was going on here: He wasn’t panicking.

  Not only was he not panicking, but he actually felt better here at the top of this mountain than he had in days. The hiking shoes Hector had given him were so firm and springy that Gus had to force his legs not to start walking. His new outfit was even better. He had bright blue tees in long and short sleeves, both made of some miracle material that was supposed to wick all moisture, body odor, and, according to the label, bad karma away from his body. His shorts looked like generic cargos, but they were breathable, water- and wind-resistant, and also spent their spare time wicking bad things away. Best of all were the zippers that ran around the bottom of each leg; in his pack were extensions that would turn the shorts into long pants in case it got cold. Even the socks seemed to have been woven by wizards. His feet had never felt so snug.

  And he’d taken a moment to glance through the backpack that had his name on it. There were several changes of those wonderful socks and underwear, a Swiss Army knife, a full first-aid kit, two one-liter bottles of water, and a sleeping bag and pad strapped to the pack’s bottom. A fat, yellow plastic cylinder hung off a clip on the pack’s frame; Gus realized this must be the emergency beacon. And then there was the food. Lots and lots of freeze-dried food. Gus had tried freeze-dried food before-his parents had hidden a stash of powdered eggs, pemmican bars, and Tang in their basement during the Cuban missile crisis, and Gus had sampled it all when he and Shawn found the stash decades later-but what he had in his pack was nothing like that. He had kung pao chicken and beef Stroganoff and shrimp Newburg and huevos rancheros. For side dishes he had peas and corn and bacon-infused mashed potatoes; desserts included fudge brownies and banana cream pie and blackberry cobbler. In their current state they all weighed just a little bit less than nothing, but once Gus added water, it would be like he had the entire buffet from a high-end Indian casino.

  Gus was feeling so good it took him a moment to realize why Shawn looked so grim as he walked over to him. It wasn’t just the hazard-warning red of his high-tech T-shirt; he was seriously troubled.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Shawn said.

  “I’m not going to let something stupid like a recurring dream get me down.”

  Shawn studied him carefully. “You be sure to tell me if you begin to hallucinate. Because I know how disturbing a recurring nightmare can be.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve said that,” Gus said. “But you never told me what your dream is.”

  “Let’s just assume it has something to do with pudding, and leave it there,” Shawn said. “Anyway, if you’re really okay, the others are ready to start walking. The only thing stopping them is that they’re still fighting over which of six different paths they should take.”

  “Six?” Gus glanced over to see the lawyers in heated debate. Even though they had all changed out of their suits and into the same kind of comfortable sportswear that Gus had on, but in varying colors, they still looked like they were arguing in front of a judge. Except, of course, for Jade, whose short, formfitting emerald dress made her look like Rima the Jungle Girl arguing with the rest of the Super Friends. “There are only five of them.”

  “Balowsky was fighting for the southern route, but when it looked like Mathis was going to agree with him, he changed to an eastern path just to keep the fight going for a little longer.”

  Shawn moved closer to Gus to make sure they could talk without being overheard. “I checked my pack,” he said, “and it looks like we’ve got enough food for six days, just like Rushton said. Unfortunately it’s going to be two weeks before these people can agree which way to go. Then it will merely be a matter of which side of the mountain to roll our bones down.”

  “Maybe we should just choose one and go,” Gus said. “See who follows us.”

  “That would be a good idea if either of us had the map,” Shawn said. “I have an alternative plan.”

  “What’s that?”

  Shawn fingered the emergency beacon hanging off Gus’ pack. “ET phone home.”

  “And then ET get sued out of existence,” Gus said.

  “Not if we unmask Mathis as the killer first,” Shawn said. “He’ll run, we won’t be able to catch him, and the exercise is ruined.”

  “Along with our agency,” Gus said. “I have a better idea. We figure out which way to go, and we use the day’s hike to confirm that Mathis is our killer. Then, once we’ve got incontrovertible proof, we use the beacon.”

  “You sure about this?” Shawn asked, studying Gus’ face for any sign of panic, despair, or hallucination.

  “I’m really fine,” Gus said. “I guess being out in the wilderness is like going to the dentist. The anticipation is much worse than the reality.”

  “Funny, I’ve always found that having people jam razor-sharp pokers into my gums a lot worse than thinking about it,” Shawn said. “But if you’re really okay with this, then I guess it’s time to start moving.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Gus slipped his arms through the straps of his backpack and shrugged it tight against his shoulderblades. Once he’d fastened the chest and waist straps, the pack balanced so well it seemed weightless, and when he stood up, it felt like it was being lifted by a skyhook. “Let’s go.”

  They walked over to the clutch of lawyers bickering across the clearing.

  “Why can’t you understand this?” Mathis was saying, beads of sweat dripping down from his artificially tan hairline. “The only thing to our east is the desert. If we go down that way, we’re going to die in the wilderness.”

  “If we don’t stop before we hit Nevada,” Savage said, not bothering to hide the contempt in his voice. “We’re hiking down the mountain, and when we reach our destination, Rushton will be waiting for us. He knows we’re not skilled mountaineers, so he’s going to want us to take the safest and easiest path down. If you look, you’ll see that’s the eastern route.”

  Gus looked in the direction Savage was pointing. There was a faint trail that threaded its way through a lunar landscape of enormous boulders before disappearing into a pine forest a long way below. In other words, it looked exactly like the paths leading off in every other direction from the summit.

  “What makes you think the eastern route is the easiest?” Gwendolyn demanded. “If you have the map, you have a moral obligation to share that information with us.”

  “And then you’ll have a moral obligation to share that information with Rushton,” Balowsky said. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

  Jade looked like she was about to burst into tears. Gus wondered if they would have a green tint, too. “Guys, we need to make a decision,” she whined. “We should just strike out. If
there was a wrong way, Rushton would have told us. So let’s go west. Or north. No, let’s split the difference and go northwest.”

  “It’s a simple fact of natural law,” Savage said, ignoring Jade as if she were a bright green mosquito. “The eastern side of this mountain gets far less rain than the western side. Less rain means less runoff, which means less erosion, which means an easier hike down.”

  “Hike down to nowhere,” Mathis said. “When we were flying up here, I saw buildings on the southern approach. That must have been the park entrance, and that’s going to be where we can expect to find other people.”

  “And you know this because you’re such an expert on California, Mr. Detroit?” Gwendolyn said. “You do a lot of mountaineering in Motown?”

  “I’ve got eyes and a strong desire to survive,” Mathis said. “And unlike some of the people here, I’d rather be alive than see someone else die.”

  “Guys,” Jade said again. “We don’t have that many hours before it gets dark. We’ve got to start moving.”

  Again, her voice seemed to have the same effect on the others as a mosquito’s whine. Shawn stepped up to the pack. “Do any of you have any balloons?” he said. “Because as long as you’re putting out all this hot air we could use it to float down the mountain.”

  Even with that friendly opening, the assembled lawyers did not seem pleased to have Shawn join them.

  “You’re the psychic,” Gwendolyn said. “Why don’t you just beam us off the mountain.”

  “You know, that’s a common misconception about my powers,” Shawn said. “Believe it or not, I can’t actually teleport anyone.”

  “That’s the one thing I would believe about you,” Balowsky said. “Oh, and that even in this vast, trackless wilderness you’re a waste of space that should be used for something more beneficial to society. Like another rock.”